


Unhelpful

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: The Helping Hands Initiative [5]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amputees, F/M, Not exactly wardrobe malfunction, Prosthetics, charity galas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 17:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13439592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Expanding on a mention of a mishap in Green Rooves.





	Unhelpful

**Author's Note:**

> Rated teen for some strong language.

“Shit, ow, god damn it!” Tadashi paused when he heard the string of curses coming from the bathroom of their hotel room. Abigail had disappeared into there about twenty minutes ago, right after he’d gotten out of the shower. He guessed that she hadn't slipped in the tub, as he’d heard the water from her own wash turn off several minutes ago. “Shit, fuck, dammit, ow!”

“You okay in there?” He called through the door.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned, sounding incredibly serious but not in any serious pain.

“Laugh at what?”

“Hhhh, you should probably just come in here,” Abby said tersely. When he hesitated to open the already unlocked door, she added, “don’t worry, I’m decent.”

She certainly was that. More than that, she looked beautiful. Well, she always looked beautiful, but normally the only makeup she wore was engine grease and her clothes were restricted to nerdy t-shirts and coveralls. Now she wore wore maroon lipstick and golden eyeliner that made her dark skin seem to glisten, and her silver dress showed off her shoulders and clung to her hips in all the right ways. Tadashi was almost too awestruck to snicker. Almost.

“Oh sure, go ahead and laugh. I know you find this hilarious.” Abby sounded and looked absolutely pissed, but her friend knew it was with the situation, not with him. Well, maybe a little bit with him. “Can you stop giggling and help me? We’re supposed to leave for the event in twenty minutes, and I can’t very well go like this.”

Her silver right arm was held up above her head, the hand tangled up completely in her hair, half robotic armpit exposed to the world. Tadashi stepped forward to get a better look at the mess, and was able to see that not only was her kinky halo wrapped around the hand, but some of the hairs were actually pinched in the joints between the panels of her prosthetic.

“What even happened?” Tadashi asked, trying admirably to suppress a grin.

“I was just trying to braid it,” she growled.

“You could have asked for help earlier,” he offered, trying to figure out where to start fixing it.

“Do you know how to French braid?” She asked. His silence as he tried to tug some of the strands out of the metal connections was the answer. “Thought so. Shit!”

“Sorry,” Tadashi immediately apologized and let go of her hand and the hair where he was trying to disentangle them. “This is really bad.”

“Ya think?” She snapped.

“I don’t think I can get this undone without scissors.”

“MotheFUCKER!” She barked. “Shit, fuck, okay, do what you have to do I guess, but if you mess my hair up too badly I will strangle you to death with my bare hands.” He didn’t doubt that she was capable of it. Her arm wasn’t as high powered as the Winter Soldier’s, but it was beefed up a bit from the normal model so she could do heavy lifting more easily.

“... Do you have any scissors?” He asked. They’d flown here, and so he obviously hadn’t brought a pair. Getting through security had already been hard enough as it is, with their metal limbs. They’d eventually had to get Tony Stark on the phone, and after twenty minutes of haggling and convincing, he’d gotten them through and promised that next time they could use his private jet.

“GodDAMMIT,” she yelled again, answering his question. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“I could go talk to the front desk?” He offered. “Okay, just be quick about it, and don’t you dare bring anyone else up here.”

It took him ten minutes to get down to the front desk (only to learn they couldn’t help him) and then run to the CVS across the street, buy a pair of children’s scissors, and return to their room. Abby gave him a despairing look of “Why?” when she saw what Tadashi had bought.

“It’s all they had,” he apologized. She basically growled, and seemed to brace herself against the counter as she snarled at him to get on with it. He tried to cut as little off as possible, but given their limited time and lack of skill with hair in general, not to mention her hair, a lot of it was left on the bathroom tile and stuck in her arm by the time it came free. Her hair looked a mess when he was done. It stuck up in more points than Hiro’s, with dozens of curly little springs sticking up from those, and she just gave it a look of disdain.

“I don’t have time for this,” she despaired. “And I left all my hats at home.”

“Hey, your hair still looks better than mine,” Tadashi tried to cheer her up, and did manage to drag out a sad smile. She squared her jaw a moment later. Hell, she had lost a hand! She wasn’t gonna go crying over a shitty haircut.

“Grab me a glove and a plastic bag,” she ordered. “I’ll try to get some of this hair out of this arm on the way over, and I don’t want to leave it in the Uber. I’ll cover it with the glove if I can’t make it presentable.” He did as she said, and a minute later she was running down the stairs with her heels in hand because the elevator was taking too long to show up. Tadashi kept pace, and another minute found them in the back of a sedan, cruising towards some big upscale convention hall, the name of which Abby had forgotten as soon as she told it to their driver. There was traffic, and while they were going to be even later now, at least it gave her time to pick all the hair out of the joints in her arm, so that at least was decent. Tadashi kept her glove in his suit jacket pocket (not his favorite old blazer, sadly. He still lamented its loss in the fire) and let her tie his tie for him.

Abby thanked and tipped their driver quickly before she got out, as she knew the were going to accosted as soon as they stepped out. Sure enough, the young inventors were greeted with cameras. The woman groaned. Her hair was going to be immortalized like this forever. If anyone mentioned it though, she couldn’t hear it over the shouts of the press. They paused for one photo, both of their smiles a little flustered, before hurrying inside away from the paparazzi.

“Ms. Akindele, Mr. Hamada,” some donor that they were probably supposed to recognize called out to them, waved them over to introduce to some of his other rich buddies. Rather than drifting down over the young woman’s figure as usual, their eyes kept creeping up. No one said anything though, for about ten minutes, and Abby just smiled, hoping it didn’t look too pained.

“Is hair like this a new fashion trend?” An elderly woman finally asked her. Abigail winced, considered lying, decided she couldn’t pull it off.

“Not as far as I’m aware,” she replied. “I had a bit of a mishap.”

“Ah.” And that was the end of it. Every time they turned around though, Tadashi heard whispers. With each one he overheard he thought about turning back, going to remind everyone who dared make fun of her that she still looked better than they did, ever had, and ever would. He managed to restrain the urge.

“I can give the presentation,” he offered Abby instead. That way she wouldn’t have to go up in front of everyone, be subjected to more humiliation.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re not prepared, and I’m a better speaker anyway,” she said, not boasting but truthfully. “It’ll be fine.”

“If you’re sure,” he said, obviously unsure himself, as she hopped up onstage. The microphone screeched horribly when she picked it up, which at least got everyone’s attention without her having to ask for it.

“Sorry about that,” she immediately apologized. “I feel like as an engineer I should have been able to prevent that.” She earned some polite laughter there before she began to talk in earnest. “Now, I know it’s cliché to start a speech with “the craziest thing happened to me on my way over here” but I think it actually applies in this case. Some of you may have noticed my… unusual hair tonight.” Now that she herself had brought it up, they were allowed to laugh, and many people did. “You see, I was trying to braid it, for myself for the first time since I lost my hand, and it was all going fine and dandy until my hair started to snag, and before I knew it my prosthetic was so completely tangled up in it that we had to cut it out. You see, the reason Helping Hands are so versatile is that they mimic a flesh and bone hand with numerous joints. The problem with this, that I didn’t notice until tonight, is that without an unbroken layer of skin covering it, each of those connections is a snag point. Which isn’t helpful at all. This is what engineers call “a bug.” There are some things that no amount of computer modeling can tell you, and this is one reason why multiple levels of prototyping are necessary, and even then sometimes they don't catch every issue. It's also one of the reasons new projects can get so expensive.”

Her speech continued from there. Tadashi couldn’t remember what exactly she said, but he knew it was a good speech by how it made him feel. The main idea left in his mind was I am go gone for this girl.

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments. I was planning for this to be the end of the series, but I'd be happy to write more if people want to read it!


End file.
